How Much Will Government Do to Shelter the Homeless?
By Ted Walner, Peer Advocate, Baltic Street AEH, Inc.
Plan in Discussion to Step-Up Housing Relief
Approximately 20-25% of the homeless population suffer from some form of mental illness. One can see the homeless trying to survive on the streets of New York. We pass them and feel very sad to see human beings in this condition.
There are several reasons why the mentally ill become homeless. Many of them have difficulty taking care of themselves and managing household responsibilities. They also push away friends and family that might be able to help them. Half of the mentally ill also suffer from substance abuse. They try to self-medicate and become addicted to drugs and alcohol. Their situation makes it difficult to find employment which would lead to residential stability.
Supportive housing is an effective way of combating homelessness among the mentally ill. It costs the state more than $40,000 per person in ER stays, psychiatric hospitals, shelters, and prison, whereas it costs about $17,277 per person to provide supportive housing. With housing, mental health treatment, physical care, employment, and peer support are provided. This support system helps people stay in their homes.
The government has provided a lot of programs for the homeless mentally ill. In February 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This includes 1.5 billion dollars for homeless prevention and re-housing. In 1990, former Mayor David Dinkins and former Governor Cuomo signed the NY/NY I agreement to provide housing. Later, in 1999 and 2005, NY/NY II and III agreements were established. These programs have provided housing and social services to single adults and families.
Governor Cuomo discussed his plans to spend $20 billion over the next five years on 100,000 permanent housing units. He said that within New York state, thousands of additional units would be created that provide social services as well.
Mayor de Blasio also discussed his plans for the Fiscal Year 2017. His budget includes funding for 15,000 units of supportive housing over the next fifteen years. He is allocating funds for shelter repairs, and adding additional beds for homeless youth. He is also expanding domestic violence shelters and providing services for homeless veterans as well.
We are making progress, but there is a lot more work to be done. Hopefully, we will continue providing cost-effective solutions that are both moral and humanitarian. If we continue to provide support, perhaps one day this homelessness problem will end.
Monday, June 6, 2016
The Bridge Group Artists at The Museum of Modern Art: “Finding Center”
The Bridge Group Artists at The Museum of Modern Art: “Finding Center”
By William Jiang, MLS
On the evening of Wednesday, February 10, 2016 I attended the opening of The Bridge Group Artists at MoMA on 54th Street. The display will be ongoing from February 1st through February 28th.
In attendance at the opening was Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who has been supporting The Bridge for many years. She even mentioned she supported The Bridge when its original director, Dr. Murray Itzkowitz (who served The Bridge for 31 years as Executive Director, and then ED Emeritus until his passing in 2013), worked there. Carrie McGee, the assistant director of MoMA’s Community and Access Program spoke, as did Cynthia Wainwright, President of The Bridge. Susan Wiviott, The Bridge's CEO had glowing words for the artists. Karen Johnson, affiliated with the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, spoke, as did Judith Rosenthal, the director of The Bridge's art program. Ms. Rosenthal talked about how The Bridge artists are unafraid to experiment with their art and how the act of creating art in a safe place can be very healing.
Leilani Yizar eulogized long-time artist and mentor at The Bridge, James Sneed. You could tell that Ms. Yizar was very emotional about Mr. Sneed’s passing, a fitting memorial for a man who donated twenty-six years of his life to a cause he believed in. Also, The Bridge artists Scott, Glen, Michael and Patricia spoke at the event, giving interesting perspectives about the art they created.
It turns out that The Bridge Group Artists, under the direction of art therapist Judith Raskin Rosenthal, ATR, evolved from The Bridge Art Therapy Program. This program provides a safe, supportive and therapeutic environment in which The Bridge clients can express themselves artistically and develop essential social skills.
The Bridge changes lives by providing help, hope and opportunity to the most vulnerable in New York City. The Bridge offers a comprehensive range of services to ensure that the 2,300 men and women who come to them for help each year receive the assistance they need to lead stable, healthy and productive lives. The Bridge is more than just housing. They help individuals with a serious mental illness, the formerly homeless, young adults aging out of foster care and veterans. They also have creative arts therapy that helps clients explore their creative side and develop a healthy way to process and express their emotions. Tonight's event allowed a number of The Bridge artists to shine at one of the most prestigious museums of art in New York and the world, the Museum of Modern Art. Bravo!
By William Jiang, MLS
On the evening of Wednesday, February 10, 2016 I attended the opening of The Bridge Group Artists at MoMA on 54th Street. The display will be ongoing from February 1st through February 28th.
In attendance at the opening was Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who has been supporting The Bridge for many years. She even mentioned she supported The Bridge when its original director, Dr. Murray Itzkowitz (who served The Bridge for 31 years as Executive Director, and then ED Emeritus until his passing in 2013), worked there. Carrie McGee, the assistant director of MoMA’s Community and Access Program spoke, as did Cynthia Wainwright, President of The Bridge. Susan Wiviott, The Bridge's CEO had glowing words for the artists. Karen Johnson, affiliated with the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, spoke, as did Judith Rosenthal, the director of The Bridge's art program. Ms. Rosenthal talked about how The Bridge artists are unafraid to experiment with their art and how the act of creating art in a safe place can be very healing.
Leilani Yizar eulogized long-time artist and mentor at The Bridge, James Sneed. You could tell that Ms. Yizar was very emotional about Mr. Sneed’s passing, a fitting memorial for a man who donated twenty-six years of his life to a cause he believed in. Also, The Bridge artists Scott, Glen, Michael and Patricia spoke at the event, giving interesting perspectives about the art they created.
It turns out that The Bridge Group Artists, under the direction of art therapist Judith Raskin Rosenthal, ATR, evolved from The Bridge Art Therapy Program. This program provides a safe, supportive and therapeutic environment in which The Bridge clients can express themselves artistically and develop essential social skills.
The Bridge changes lives by providing help, hope and opportunity to the most vulnerable in New York City. The Bridge offers a comprehensive range of services to ensure that the 2,300 men and women who come to them for help each year receive the assistance they need to lead stable, healthy and productive lives. The Bridge is more than just housing. They help individuals with a serious mental illness, the formerly homeless, young adults aging out of foster care and veterans. They also have creative arts therapy that helps clients explore their creative side and develop a healthy way to process and express their emotions. Tonight's event allowed a number of The Bridge artists to shine at one of the most prestigious museums of art in New York and the world, the Museum of Modern Art. Bravo!
Gail Caldwell’s Memoirs: Eloquent Profiles in Courage and Humility
Gail Caldwell’s Memoirs: Eloquent Profiles in Courage and Humility
By Carl Blumenthal
Whatever Issues She Had Did Not Get the Best of Her
New Life, No Instructions (2014): “I wonder about the pilgrims at Lourdes and Fatima, the ones who felt the glow and realized they could walk….The real task must have come later, after they absorbed what had happened: miracle, new life, no instructions.”
Let’s Take the Long Way Home (2010): “It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died so we shared that, too.”
A Strong West Wind (2006): “The real beauty of the question—how do we become who we are?—is that by the time we are old enough to ask it, to understand its infinite breadth, it is too late to do much about it. That is not the sorrow of hindsight, but its music: That is what grants us a bearable past.”
Gail Caldwell, the author of these three memoirs, is a master of the “mot juste,” French for the perfect word or phrase. She plucks at the reader’s heart strings, not just through the “shock and awe” of her life story, which contains enough turning points to leave ordinary mortals gasping for breath, but also with a thoughtfulness which is a saving grace.
Born in 1951 and raised in Amarillo, Texas, she immerses herself in the counter-culture of Austin, in and out of the university, then lights out for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she stakes her claim as a writer, including more than 20 years as chief book critic for The Boston Globe, winning the Pulitzer Prize for literary criticism in 2001.
Coming from a family with deep roots in the Panhandle, Gail Caldwell insists the alcoholism, depression, and suicide, which stopped several of her relatives in their tracks, were as much a matter of geography as genes. Thus she begins the first chapter of her first memoir, A Strong West Wind: “Poised at the heart of so much land, Amarillo, too, sprawled in a sort of languid disregard, as though territorial hegemony might make up for all that loneliness.”
However, time or timing is an equal factor in determining her fate. At the end of the polio epidemic, she contracts a mild form as a toddler. Her mother motivates Gail to walk by performing beside her the necessary leg-strengthening exercises, which are repeated for hours on end.
Reaching this milestone instills a sometimes naïve expectation that loved ones will go the extra mile to help when she’s down, but, when they don’t, it’s better to find the gumption to carry on alone rather than compromise. Such whipsawing eventually disproves that “love is a many-splendored thing,” (the title of a popular 1955 film starring heart throbs William Holden and Jennifer Jones).
Thus, to compensate for this limitation as a child, Gail becomes, on the one hand, a bookworm, and, on the other, a swimmer; maintaining balance over both imaginary and real depths. Yet over the years her hip deteriorates from the residual limp, requiring at age 60 a replacement as complicated as repairing a truck’s broken axle in the middle of a traffic jam.
Once her own biological clock ticks past 50 years, Gail appreciates the support her parents provided growing up, even if her rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s, including bad boyfriends, a terrible Vietnam War, and the fierceness of early feminism, butted against that support as if it were a police barrier.
A Strong West Wind doubles back in its last half to the stories and jokes of survival her dad shared with her as a child. Surely these inspired her writing. Nevertheless, as a World War II vet, he often appeared unsympathetic when she strayed from the fold. A reconciliation occurs as their respective ambitions diminish with age.
Only later, in New Life, No Instructions, after the recovery from hip surgery gains Gail new mobility, does she recall how much her working mom surreptitiously encouraged Gail’s independence and acted as indomitably in her own way as her father.
By inserting their reappearances outside the narratives’ chronology, Caldwell recognizes the long shadow they cast over her. While Gail cites Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel as seminal to her youthful romanticism, his subsequent, more plaintive You Can’t Go Home Again better epitomizes the writer’s nomadic plight.
By 1981 Caldwell flees home with an abandon fueled by the elixir of liquor. Her preferred drink is Jack Daniels, which she swills from a bottle like mother’s milk. Even in cozy Cambridge with all her success, the emptiness of the Texas plains seems to extend to her doorstep. She finally trades alcoholism for AA and therapy after falling and breaking her ribs in a stupor.
Let’s Take the Long Way Home chronicles Caldwell’s friendship with Caroline Knapp, the celebrated author of Drinking: A Love Story and Appetites: Why Women Want, about her alcoholism and anorexia, respectively. By the time they meet, both are sober and, in Knapp’s case, slim but apparently healthy.
They bond over walking their dogs. Caroline teaches Gail how to row on Boston’s Charles River and Gail instructs Caroline in swimming New Hampshire’s lakes where they vacation. These mutual strengths (and occasional sore spots) form the basis of a camaraderie legendary in the literary circles around Harvard Yard.
When Caroline dies suddenly of lung cancer at 42, after smoking throughout adulthood—an addiction which seems socially the lesser of three evils when compared with drinking or fasting herself to death—Gail experiences the greatest of many losses in her life.
She leads the reader through the wearying process of grief with exacting details like those describing her hip operation and training her dogs. After one Samoyed sled dog dies she adopts another and both Let’s Take the Long Way Home and New Life, No Instructions are as much canine as human love stories.
How to summarize a writer whose prose is as brilliant and dense as diamonds? Gail Caldwell exhorts us to lead a life of compassion for ourselves and others, during which whatever we perceive as our failings doesn’t impede our instincts for survival.
That she omits from these memoirs her long and successful career as a writer demonstrates the advice invariably offered in non-fiction classes—it’s just as important to show what counts as to avoid telling too much. Given she’s a self-taught author, Caldwell implies achieving our greatest dream is not always cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.
In the big scheme of things, all that fracked Texas oil may lower the price of her weathered Volvo’s gas, but in the long run we will have to transform the simple pleasures of sun, wind, and water into the energy needed to get us to that big rest stop in the sky. Or as JK Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, said in her commencement speech at Harvard in 2008, quoting the Roman philosopher Seneca, “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
By Carl Blumenthal
Whatever Issues She Had Did Not Get the Best of Her
New Life, No Instructions (2014): “I wonder about the pilgrims at Lourdes and Fatima, the ones who felt the glow and realized they could walk….The real task must have come later, after they absorbed what had happened: miracle, new life, no instructions.”
Let’s Take the Long Way Home (2010): “It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died so we shared that, too.”
A Strong West Wind (2006): “The real beauty of the question—how do we become who we are?—is that by the time we are old enough to ask it, to understand its infinite breadth, it is too late to do much about it. That is not the sorrow of hindsight, but its music: That is what grants us a bearable past.”
Gail Caldwell, the author of these three memoirs, is a master of the “mot juste,” French for the perfect word or phrase. She plucks at the reader’s heart strings, not just through the “shock and awe” of her life story, which contains enough turning points to leave ordinary mortals gasping for breath, but also with a thoughtfulness which is a saving grace.
Born in 1951 and raised in Amarillo, Texas, she immerses herself in the counter-culture of Austin, in and out of the university, then lights out for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she stakes her claim as a writer, including more than 20 years as chief book critic for The Boston Globe, winning the Pulitzer Prize for literary criticism in 2001.
Coming from a family with deep roots in the Panhandle, Gail Caldwell insists the alcoholism, depression, and suicide, which stopped several of her relatives in their tracks, were as much a matter of geography as genes. Thus she begins the first chapter of her first memoir, A Strong West Wind: “Poised at the heart of so much land, Amarillo, too, sprawled in a sort of languid disregard, as though territorial hegemony might make up for all that loneliness.”
However, time or timing is an equal factor in determining her fate. At the end of the polio epidemic, she contracts a mild form as a toddler. Her mother motivates Gail to walk by performing beside her the necessary leg-strengthening exercises, which are repeated for hours on end.
Reaching this milestone instills a sometimes naïve expectation that loved ones will go the extra mile to help when she’s down, but, when they don’t, it’s better to find the gumption to carry on alone rather than compromise. Such whipsawing eventually disproves that “love is a many-splendored thing,” (the title of a popular 1955 film starring heart throbs William Holden and Jennifer Jones).
Thus, to compensate for this limitation as a child, Gail becomes, on the one hand, a bookworm, and, on the other, a swimmer; maintaining balance over both imaginary and real depths. Yet over the years her hip deteriorates from the residual limp, requiring at age 60 a replacement as complicated as repairing a truck’s broken axle in the middle of a traffic jam.
Once her own biological clock ticks past 50 years, Gail appreciates the support her parents provided growing up, even if her rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s, including bad boyfriends, a terrible Vietnam War, and the fierceness of early feminism, butted against that support as if it were a police barrier.
A Strong West Wind doubles back in its last half to the stories and jokes of survival her dad shared with her as a child. Surely these inspired her writing. Nevertheless, as a World War II vet, he often appeared unsympathetic when she strayed from the fold. A reconciliation occurs as their respective ambitions diminish with age.
Only later, in New Life, No Instructions, after the recovery from hip surgery gains Gail new mobility, does she recall how much her working mom surreptitiously encouraged Gail’s independence and acted as indomitably in her own way as her father.
By inserting their reappearances outside the narratives’ chronology, Caldwell recognizes the long shadow they cast over her. While Gail cites Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel as seminal to her youthful romanticism, his subsequent, more plaintive You Can’t Go Home Again better epitomizes the writer’s nomadic plight.
By 1981 Caldwell flees home with an abandon fueled by the elixir of liquor. Her preferred drink is Jack Daniels, which she swills from a bottle like mother’s milk. Even in cozy Cambridge with all her success, the emptiness of the Texas plains seems to extend to her doorstep. She finally trades alcoholism for AA and therapy after falling and breaking her ribs in a stupor.
Let’s Take the Long Way Home chronicles Caldwell’s friendship with Caroline Knapp, the celebrated author of Drinking: A Love Story and Appetites: Why Women Want, about her alcoholism and anorexia, respectively. By the time they meet, both are sober and, in Knapp’s case, slim but apparently healthy.
They bond over walking their dogs. Caroline teaches Gail how to row on Boston’s Charles River and Gail instructs Caroline in swimming New Hampshire’s lakes where they vacation. These mutual strengths (and occasional sore spots) form the basis of a camaraderie legendary in the literary circles around Harvard Yard.
When Caroline dies suddenly of lung cancer at 42, after smoking throughout adulthood—an addiction which seems socially the lesser of three evils when compared with drinking or fasting herself to death—Gail experiences the greatest of many losses in her life.
She leads the reader through the wearying process of grief with exacting details like those describing her hip operation and training her dogs. After one Samoyed sled dog dies she adopts another and both Let’s Take the Long Way Home and New Life, No Instructions are as much canine as human love stories.
How to summarize a writer whose prose is as brilliant and dense as diamonds? Gail Caldwell exhorts us to lead a life of compassion for ourselves and others, during which whatever we perceive as our failings doesn’t impede our instincts for survival.
That she omits from these memoirs her long and successful career as a writer demonstrates the advice invariably offered in non-fiction classes—it’s just as important to show what counts as to avoid telling too much. Given she’s a self-taught author, Caldwell implies achieving our greatest dream is not always cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.
In the big scheme of things, all that fracked Texas oil may lower the price of her weathered Volvo’s gas, but in the long run we will have to transform the simple pleasures of sun, wind, and water into the energy needed to get us to that big rest stop in the sky. Or as JK Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, said in her commencement speech at Harvard in 2008, quoting the Roman philosopher Seneca, “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
Ward Stories
Ward Stories
Organized by Dan Frey, Editor in Chief
Four poets are featured in the summer 2016 edition of Ward Stories: Richard A. Martinez Jr., Joel Simonds, Ijaaza EL, and someone who prefers to remain anonymous. Marvin Spieler, a pioneer in peer advocacy, died earlier this year. To those who knew Marvin, some of the poems below, though not intended as such, are a reminder of his struggles, our own, and how someone's death, especially the dearly departed, can force us to put our personal lives in perspective.
My Last Sad Cigarette
By Richard A. Martinez Jr.
I drown my sorrow
Into a lit cigarette
Waiting for this day to be
Better than the next
As the cigarette burns
Down to its final ashes
The things I did comes to me in flashes
Good times and bad
Things that made me happy and mad
Reminders in life
That can make a person so sad
But through the rough
And just when I know I had enough
Thoughts of ending these thoughts
Could be the devil's bluff
Crazy thoughts through a cloudy head
The past still hinders
And a living soul is half dead
But a new day is in sight
Hoping as I sleep in the night
Even when I dream
My cigarette gives me a light.
To Amy (1954-2015)
By Joel Simonds
Still waters run so very deep,
Or so it is that they say;
Now no one could rouse you from sleep,
Even just to see you one more day.
Amy, when it was that I first saw you here,
Not remembering our older day;
I asked you for a poem to share, and
You declined, shyly stepping away—
Then came days of valiant work,
The work you plied upon yourself;
From struggle your quiet soul couldn’t shirk,
While your art you had to leave upon the shelf…
But soon, in our groups, you began to tell
Of your love of writing in your book;
You ventured forth from your shell,
And gave fleeting Life a final, sweeping look.
You faced the battle so dignified, so brave,
Never giving in to despair;
All of your strength, your art, you gave
And inner feelings once again you shared.
Yes, Amy, you came alive,
Rising from old still waters;
Swimming through the tide, again to thrive,
Your good deeds like new sons and daughters.
Now Amy’s poetry is declared on High,
By G-d’s closest angelic Host;
I don’t know how to say goodbye,
For in this stillness, it’s your stillness we miss the most.
What Goes On Inside My Head (Makes Me Physically Dead)
By Ijaaza EL
What makes these cords, wires, nerves and synapses begin tripping & flipping
causing panic, anxiety and lapses of memory? Is post traumatic stress a part
of my chemistry? What causes this performance? Is it a test for endurance?
For the love of the Almighty, how much can my precious brain take?
These bugs in my brain are driving me insane; the repetition is so in sync it
may also drive me to drink. God! I am afraid to think. It is so devastating…
how I shut my body down and just go absolutely cold. Father, please have mercy
on my soul. From September 17th through September 25th,
life behind bars became as a gift. Though from the start it was a burden of terrors,
a multitude of errors in an assembly line—I couldn’t decipher this strange
dilemma of losing my mind. But hospital staff, doctors, and roommates
were exceptionally kind. I am back home in a corner in the recesses of my mind.
I am doing fine with baby steps, one at a time.
The Almighty has showered me with creations and innovation
whereas in a week I have learned to think things wisely. Through my tears
I will harness my fears and I am more than grateful that he is near.
Post trauma is my drama and I will not invoke negative passage to
disturb my positive karma. What goes on inside my head,
I am compelled to keeping in control. Although my personality and character are
still ever so bold. I am discipline, and I am listening to what makes me better.
I have made my bed with all I have said. What goes on inside my head
I won’t ever let it make me become physically dead…Again.
DEATH
By Anonymous
Death my savior, death my friend
The solace which awaits me, at life’s end
No longer livid, or depressed
No more guilt, or sins to confess
To no longer feel abandoned, or unloved
From mortals below, or G-d above
No short highs, which swiftly turn to lows
And to hear “Understand, this is the way life goes”
No more of life’s heat, and suffocating gloom
Or anguishing torture, on a hot afternoon
To me death is a soft breeze, on a cool Autumn night
‘Ah to bask in death’s rains, and dreary delights’
Its darkness is thick, soothing and warm
And shields me from harsh winds, and bitter storms
Death is a place, of never-ending pleasure
Its paradise cannot be measured
To bond, with the Everlasting Love
To be at one, with G-d above
Life is for saints, who do good
Not for sinners like me, who don’t do as they should
But I truly believe there is hope
If not, how in the world could I cope?
Ya see I got plans and schemes
Hopes and dreams
In this lousy life, for my peace of mind, I pray
But then again there is always death, that glorious day!
Organized by Dan Frey, Editor in Chief
Four poets are featured in the summer 2016 edition of Ward Stories: Richard A. Martinez Jr., Joel Simonds, Ijaaza EL, and someone who prefers to remain anonymous. Marvin Spieler, a pioneer in peer advocacy, died earlier this year. To those who knew Marvin, some of the poems below, though not intended as such, are a reminder of his struggles, our own, and how someone's death, especially the dearly departed, can force us to put our personal lives in perspective.
My Last Sad Cigarette
By Richard A. Martinez Jr.
I drown my sorrow
Into a lit cigarette
Waiting for this day to be
Better than the next
As the cigarette burns
Down to its final ashes
The things I did comes to me in flashes
Good times and bad
Things that made me happy and mad
Reminders in life
That can make a person so sad
But through the rough
And just when I know I had enough
Thoughts of ending these thoughts
Could be the devil's bluff
Crazy thoughts through a cloudy head
The past still hinders
And a living soul is half dead
But a new day is in sight
Hoping as I sleep in the night
Even when I dream
My cigarette gives me a light.
To Amy (1954-2015)
By Joel Simonds
Still waters run so very deep,
Or so it is that they say;
Now no one could rouse you from sleep,
Even just to see you one more day.
Amy, when it was that I first saw you here,
Not remembering our older day;
I asked you for a poem to share, and
You declined, shyly stepping away—
Then came days of valiant work,
The work you plied upon yourself;
From struggle your quiet soul couldn’t shirk,
While your art you had to leave upon the shelf…
But soon, in our groups, you began to tell
Of your love of writing in your book;
You ventured forth from your shell,
And gave fleeting Life a final, sweeping look.
You faced the battle so dignified, so brave,
Never giving in to despair;
All of your strength, your art, you gave
And inner feelings once again you shared.
Yes, Amy, you came alive,
Rising from old still waters;
Swimming through the tide, again to thrive,
Your good deeds like new sons and daughters.
Now Amy’s poetry is declared on High,
By G-d’s closest angelic Host;
I don’t know how to say goodbye,
For in this stillness, it’s your stillness we miss the most.
What Goes On Inside My Head (Makes Me Physically Dead)
By Ijaaza EL
What makes these cords, wires, nerves and synapses begin tripping & flipping
causing panic, anxiety and lapses of memory? Is post traumatic stress a part
of my chemistry? What causes this performance? Is it a test for endurance?
For the love of the Almighty, how much can my precious brain take?
These bugs in my brain are driving me insane; the repetition is so in sync it
may also drive me to drink. God! I am afraid to think. It is so devastating…
how I shut my body down and just go absolutely cold. Father, please have mercy
on my soul. From September 17th through September 25th,
life behind bars became as a gift. Though from the start it was a burden of terrors,
a multitude of errors in an assembly line—I couldn’t decipher this strange
dilemma of losing my mind. But hospital staff, doctors, and roommates
were exceptionally kind. I am back home in a corner in the recesses of my mind.
I am doing fine with baby steps, one at a time.
The Almighty has showered me with creations and innovation
whereas in a week I have learned to think things wisely. Through my tears
I will harness my fears and I am more than grateful that he is near.
Post trauma is my drama and I will not invoke negative passage to
disturb my positive karma. What goes on inside my head,
I am compelled to keeping in control. Although my personality and character are
still ever so bold. I am discipline, and I am listening to what makes me better.
I have made my bed with all I have said. What goes on inside my head
I won’t ever let it make me become physically dead…Again.
DEATH
By Anonymous
Death my savior, death my friend
The solace which awaits me, at life’s end
No longer livid, or depressed
No more guilt, or sins to confess
To no longer feel abandoned, or unloved
From mortals below, or G-d above
No short highs, which swiftly turn to lows
And to hear “Understand, this is the way life goes”
No more of life’s heat, and suffocating gloom
Or anguishing torture, on a hot afternoon
To me death is a soft breeze, on a cool Autumn night
‘Ah to bask in death’s rains, and dreary delights’
Its darkness is thick, soothing and warm
And shields me from harsh winds, and bitter storms
Death is a place, of never-ending pleasure
Its paradise cannot be measured
To bond, with the Everlasting Love
To be at one, with G-d above
Life is for saints, who do good
Not for sinners like me, who don’t do as they should
But I truly believe there is hope
If not, how in the world could I cope?
Ya see I got plans and schemes
Hopes and dreams
In this lousy life, for my peace of mind, I pray
But then again there is always death, that glorious day!
Preserving Consumer's Rights Behind Bars
Preserving Consumer's Rights Behind Bars
By Susan Goodwillie, LMSW, Social Worker, Urban Justice Center
The Mental Health Project: A Service of the Urban Justice Center
It is well known that the stigmatization of mental illness results in policies that seek to punish rather than treat individuals with psychiatric conditions. For low-income New Yorkers living with mental illness, in particular, this means being subjected daily to discrimination by landlords, employers and law enforcement officials. The criminalization of mental illness, and an overwhelming lack of community supports, have contributed to the era of mass incarceration, where jails and prisons have become the largest “mental health care providers” in the United States. Far too many people are incarcerated for symptoms that need to be properly treated, not punished.
The Mental Health Project (MHP) of the Urban Justice Center provides free civil legal and advocacy services to lower income New Yorkers living with mental illness, and fights to preserve the rights of those who become involved with the criminal justice system. While MHP provides an array of civil legal services, we put a heavy emphasis on our criminal justice advocacy. MHP advocates for discharge planning rights for people coming out of jails and prisons, provides reentry connections, and contributes to several coalitions focused on the conditions of jails and prisons for people with mental illness.
With the support of co-council Debevoise & Plimpton and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, MHP won a victory in the Brad. H vs. City of New York settlement, which requires the Department of Corrections to provide comprehensive discharge planning to individuals living with mental illness who are returning to the community from Rikers Island. MHP has provided independent oversight to ensure the city’s compliance with the settlement by making weekly visits to Rikers Island and speaking with individuals about the kinds of services they’re being offered.
The Mental Health Project was a founding partner in Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement (MHASC), a statewide coalition concerned about the impact of solitary confinement on people in state prisons. Largely in part to MHASC’s efforts since 2003, New York State passed the SHU (“special” housing unit or solitary confinement) Exclusion Law in 2008. Finally enacted in 2011, the SHU Exclusion Law prohibits individuals classified as having a serious mental illness from being placed in solitary confinement.
In order to build on the progress made by the SHU Exclusion Law, MHP helped form another coalition called the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC). Currently, CAIC is advocating for NYS representatives in Albany to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act. HALT would vastly limit the types of infractions that would result in an individual being placed in solitary confinement, as well as the length of sentences in solitary. HALT would also prohibit vulnerable populations from being placed in solitary confinement for any amount of time and would provide more transparency and oversight of the use of solitary confinement.
MHP is excited to offer more frequent advocacy courses to assist individuals returning to the community from jail or prison in navigating the multiple systems they might interact with, so that they may obtain or acquire the knowledge and skill base necessary to best advocate for their rights. The course introduces speakers from different organizations to discuss a range of issues, including employment, housing, and public benefits. We also hope that these courses will assist people who have had some involvement in the criminal justice systems to connect to peer supports such as clubhouses and peer advocacy training programs. MHP also provides individual case management services to individuals living with mental illness who are returning to the community from jail and prison. We assist individuals to apply for supportive housing and SSI/SSD benefits, connect people with mental health treatment and additional resources such as peer services and other employment and educational opportunities.
For more information about MHP’s services, please contact our intake coordinator, Kaitlin Hansen at (646) 602-5658. For more information about MHP’s Reentry workshops or our Advanced Advocacy Course, please contact our Advocacy Workshop Coordinator, Koretta McClendon at (646) 602-5661.
Police Training and Community Diversion Centers
Police Training and Community Diversion Centers
By Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator, Community Access
Progress Report on Implementing Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC
Relations between the mental health community and the New York Police Department (NYPD) are improving through work to implement Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for officers. CIT is a method of policing that prompts police officers to use appropriate tools to respond to incidents involving people in emotional distress. CITs ensure safe and respectful interactions between people experiencing a mental health crisis and law enforcement.
CITs are needed because the NYPD responds to 150,000 calls of those in mental health crisis a year. They call these calls EDPs(Emotionally Disturbed People calls). Progress has been made to train officers in effective handling of mental health crisis, but more must be done to impact NYPD response methods and build opportunities for diversion from the jail and hospital system.
Many officers now still respond to EDPs in a command and control approach based on their standard training. The primary way NYPD officers still try to gain control of a situation is by getting compliance from the person in distress by using force.
But that is all changing due to the work of Community Access and other members of the Communities for Crisis Intervention Team Coalition (CCIT), www.CCITNYC.org .
The NYPD has agreed to train 5,500 officers in a 36-hour training that supports police personnel in understanding the tools they need to use to effectively address those in mental health distress. So far, 300 NYPD officers have been trained using the model pioneered by the city of Memphis, TN in 1988.
But CIT is more than just training of police. CITs require coordination between the public health system, police departments, and the mental health community.
In addition to training, the NYPD—under the guidance of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene—is creating a small demonstration project pairing 10 teams of social workers and NYPD to work together. These teams will ride to shelters and other locations together as a co-response team.
The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) invited a few mental health service recipients to speak to the newly hired social workers on the co-response team. One of our main priorities continues to be that DOHMH and the NYPD go further and hire actual mental health peers to advise police.
The group of mental health leaders invited to the process also advised the co-response team that when they need to take a mental health recipient to the hospital, they might encounter a lot of resistance. Some mental health recipients, especially when they are in distress, will object to being taken to a hospital. Some recipients have had traumatic experiences at hospitals or just do not like being locked up. We advised the social workers that they will need to improve their de-escalation techniques for those people for whom a hospital is a place they dread.
The recipients at the planning meeting also advised the social work co-response teams that offering something to eat or drink or a blanket is a good gateway to a conversation with a person in distress.
The team also indicated to the co-response team the importance of being careful from where they receive information about the person in distress. We explained that talking to neighbors about a mental health recipient might not be the best idea as community members often harbor prejudice against mental health recipients. We also suggested that the co-response team be similarly cautious in talking with family members; some of us believed family members could offer information on the person in distress, but others felt family members could be the triggers for a mental health recipient, especially when the recipient is in distress.
This DOHMH co-response pilot project is exciting but not new. Houston employs a similar co-response team and has done so for 15 years. Many other cities have implemented similar teams that pair peers or clinicians with police officers, or established centralized communication centers where officers can access health information or access to treatment options.
Most importantly, CCIT continues to advocate for city-wide diversion centers where police can quickly drop off people in crisis and return to other police calls. The Mayor and DOHMH have promised to build two diversion centers but unfortunately those centers have not yet been procured or established.
These diversions centers are an essential part of a CIT response. Officers need a place to quickly drop off a person in distress or the officer will take the person into custody. A diversion center is less time-consuming and less expensive than time in jail or in the hospital, and there is evidence that diversion greatly benefits both the recipients and police officers. Currently, even the best-intentioned NYPD officers have no other choice but to take a mental health recipient to a hospital or retain them in another type of custody.
These promised diversion centers are slated to have complete mental health and drug addiction services. They will be open 24/7 and connect those being brought by police to community supports. Unlike hospitals, the focus of the diversion centers is to connect people in distress to outpatient services, a place they can apply for housing, a clinician they can talk to immediately, and other resources known to mental health community organizations. And we are assured peers will play a role in these diversion centers.
The CCITNYC coalition remains hopeful and vigilant that the NYC Mayor’s office invests resources in building diversion centers as an integral part of the CIT approach. We commend the efforts of the Mayor’s office, DOHMH, and the NYPD on their efforts thus far in supporting the best interests of New Yorkers who experience mental health crisis and emotional distress. We look forward to working together with all stakeholders into the future as CIT is expanded and enhanced with community supports.
If you are interested in upcoming events with the CIT Coalition in NYC, CCITNYC.org, please contact me at crabinowitz@communityacccess.org or 212-780-1400 x7726.
By Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator, Community Access
Progress Report on Implementing Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC
Relations between the mental health community and the New York Police Department (NYPD) are improving through work to implement Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for officers. CIT is a method of policing that prompts police officers to use appropriate tools to respond to incidents involving people in emotional distress. CITs ensure safe and respectful interactions between people experiencing a mental health crisis and law enforcement.
CITs are needed because the NYPD responds to 150,000 calls of those in mental health crisis a year. They call these calls EDPs(Emotionally Disturbed People calls). Progress has been made to train officers in effective handling of mental health crisis, but more must be done to impact NYPD response methods and build opportunities for diversion from the jail and hospital system.
Many officers now still respond to EDPs in a command and control approach based on their standard training. The primary way NYPD officers still try to gain control of a situation is by getting compliance from the person in distress by using force.
But that is all changing due to the work of Community Access and other members of the Communities for Crisis Intervention Team Coalition (CCIT), www.CCITNYC.org .
The NYPD has agreed to train 5,500 officers in a 36-hour training that supports police personnel in understanding the tools they need to use to effectively address those in mental health distress. So far, 300 NYPD officers have been trained using the model pioneered by the city of Memphis, TN in 1988.
But CIT is more than just training of police. CITs require coordination between the public health system, police departments, and the mental health community.
In addition to training, the NYPD—under the guidance of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene—is creating a small demonstration project pairing 10 teams of social workers and NYPD to work together. These teams will ride to shelters and other locations together as a co-response team.
The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) invited a few mental health service recipients to speak to the newly hired social workers on the co-response team. One of our main priorities continues to be that DOHMH and the NYPD go further and hire actual mental health peers to advise police.
The group of mental health leaders invited to the process also advised the co-response team that when they need to take a mental health recipient to the hospital, they might encounter a lot of resistance. Some mental health recipients, especially when they are in distress, will object to being taken to a hospital. Some recipients have had traumatic experiences at hospitals or just do not like being locked up. We advised the social workers that they will need to improve their de-escalation techniques for those people for whom a hospital is a place they dread.
The recipients at the planning meeting also advised the social work co-response teams that offering something to eat or drink or a blanket is a good gateway to a conversation with a person in distress.
The team also indicated to the co-response team the importance of being careful from where they receive information about the person in distress. We explained that talking to neighbors about a mental health recipient might not be the best idea as community members often harbor prejudice against mental health recipients. We also suggested that the co-response team be similarly cautious in talking with family members; some of us believed family members could offer information on the person in distress, but others felt family members could be the triggers for a mental health recipient, especially when the recipient is in distress.
This DOHMH co-response pilot project is exciting but not new. Houston employs a similar co-response team and has done so for 15 years. Many other cities have implemented similar teams that pair peers or clinicians with police officers, or established centralized communication centers where officers can access health information or access to treatment options.
Most importantly, CCIT continues to advocate for city-wide diversion centers where police can quickly drop off people in crisis and return to other police calls. The Mayor and DOHMH have promised to build two diversion centers but unfortunately those centers have not yet been procured or established.
These diversions centers are an essential part of a CIT response. Officers need a place to quickly drop off a person in distress or the officer will take the person into custody. A diversion center is less time-consuming and less expensive than time in jail or in the hospital, and there is evidence that diversion greatly benefits both the recipients and police officers. Currently, even the best-intentioned NYPD officers have no other choice but to take a mental health recipient to a hospital or retain them in another type of custody.
These promised diversion centers are slated to have complete mental health and drug addiction services. They will be open 24/7 and connect those being brought by police to community supports. Unlike hospitals, the focus of the diversion centers is to connect people in distress to outpatient services, a place they can apply for housing, a clinician they can talk to immediately, and other resources known to mental health community organizations. And we are assured peers will play a role in these diversion centers.
The CCITNYC coalition remains hopeful and vigilant that the NYC Mayor’s office invests resources in building diversion centers as an integral part of the CIT approach. We commend the efforts of the Mayor’s office, DOHMH, and the NYPD on their efforts thus far in supporting the best interests of New Yorkers who experience mental health crisis and emotional distress. We look forward to working together with all stakeholders into the future as CIT is expanded and enhanced with community supports.
If you are interested in upcoming events with the CIT Coalition in NYC, CCITNYC.org, please contact me at crabinowitz@communityacccess.org or 212-780-1400 x7726.
NYC Advocates Joined NYAPRS for Legislative Day in Albany
NYC
Advocates Joined NYAPRS for Legislative Day in Albany
By
Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator and Briana Gilmore, Director
of Planning and Recovery Practice, Community Access
Requesting
Housing and Criminal Justice System Reform
On
Tuesday, February 23, 2016, hundreds of community members from across
New York City travelled to Albany to advocate on behalf of the mental
health community. The advocates joined NYAPRS, the New York
Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, as it convened
its 19th
Annual Legislative Day.
A
Legislative day is when a group of people advocating for a cause
gather at the Capital and educate elected officials.
NYAPRS
focuses on statewide advocacy for the promotion of rights and
recovery for people who have been a part of the mental health system,
as well as those who have also had experiences with substance abuse,
homelessness, and the criminal justice system. NYAPRS members meet
with New York State Senators and Assembly Members on Legislative Day
to discuss needed reforms.
The
trip from NYC to Albany is fun itself, as hundreds of people travel
by bus together, sharing stories and excitement about the day.
Then
once in Albany, attendees meet in a very large auditorium called The
Egg. NYAPRS leaders introduce key issues, celebrate progressive
legislators working toward mental health reform, and remember past
legislative victories. After coming together over the issues we share
as a community and we break into small groups to meet with
legislators.
This
year, the biggest priorities for NYAPRS were some of the social
issues that intersect the lives of people with mental health needs,
specifically housing availability and criminal justice system reform.
NYAPRS
advocates urged Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to sign a new
NY/NY IV agreement to ensure a multi-year commitment between city and
state for the supportive housing needs of our community. In addition,
we advocated for a $92.9 million statewide housing readjustment rate
for housing providers to ensure they can sustain quality service
operation and safe, updated facilities.
Mental
health advocates joined NYAPRS in advocating for our brothers and
sisters in jail and prison and for their needs when they are
released. Reforming jails and prisons is imperative to the well-being
of our community members. This year NYAPRS focused on Presumptive
Medicaid, which would guarantee a person leaving jail or prison
Medicaid eligibility for the first 90 days. Currently, a person
leaving jail or prison has had their Medicaid eligibility suspended
and can’t immediately access health care, including medications.
Importantly,
NYAPRS prioritizes diversion from jail or prison, particularly in the
case of mental health crisis that contribute to incarceration of our
community members. We advocated for the expansion of Crisis
Intervention Team training, which is a comprehensive method to teach
police officers how to respond to people in distress. The 40-hour
training equips officers with skills to identify and de-escalate the
effects of a mental health crisis. NYC is currently committed to
training 5,500 officers, but the need is for 10,000 trained officers;
we advocated for an increase in trained officers to meet the city’s
needs.
We
also advocated for additional funding for supportive community
services. NYAPRS initiated a $90 million request to sustain community
infrastructure and expand technological resources. Behavioral health
providers are not fully equipped to navigate some of the financial
reforms implemented by the Department of Health to make the Medicaid
system more efficient. This money would support providers in
preparing to better support participants.
NYAPRS
advocates also sought $50 million reinvestment from savings gained by
the shift to Medicaid Managed Care, and $5.5 million from the closing
of hospitals. We advocated for the reinvestment of these funds into
community settings, to continue to prevent the need for
hospitalization and prioritize community integration.
One
excellent example of community reinvestment funding in the 1990s was
the Community Access Howie T Harp training program. This peer run
program trains mental health service recipients to work as peer
specialists or in the human service field. The program has promoted
over 1,000 NYC community members in pursuing workforce goals and
continues to provide options for people with mental health system
experiences.
Many
people have the perception that individual advocacy with elected
officials does not matter, but that’s not true. Ten years ago,
Community Access helped to arrange speakers for advocacy to end
solitary confinement in prisons for people with mental health
treatment needs. We thought we would wow elected officials with
experts, including a speaker from the United Nations, Amnesty
International, and top lawyers from the American Civil Liberties
Union. We also brought one family member of a person with mental
illness living in solitary.
After
the public hearing where these speakers delivered testimony, we met
separately with the legislator chairing the committee. They asked by
name for the family member who testified at the hearing. The voice of
a family advocate was the only voice they remembered from a four-hour
hearing. Personal testimony matters, and always leaves an impact on
elected leaders.
The
most important thing to remember when you speak to an elected
official is speak from the heart and convey how your personal story
relates to what issue you are seeking to change. Honesty and
commitment often translate to influence with legislative leaders.
Consider
joining us in monthly meetings to discuss news about mental health
issues from across the state and country with the NYAPRS NYC chapter.
To
get involved with NYAPRS, call Carla Rabinowitz at 212-780-1400
x7726, or crabinowitz@communityaccess.org
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